When Apple posted the new 10.5.3 update earlier this week, investigators on the MacRumors forum have located a curious iPhone icon added with the update.

If you are running OS 10.5 Leopard and update to 10.5.3, this new iPhone icon is sitting in your system. Once you have updated, navigate to the Finder, click on the “Go” menu, click on “Go To Folder” (or Command+Shift+G) and paste in the following (or simply follow the path):

/System/Library/CoreServices/CoreTypes.bundle/Contents/Resources/

Once you are in the Resources folder, you will see something that looks like this:

Locate the iPhone.icns file and double click it to open it. There should be 5 different iPhone icons, of varying sizes. You are looking for the file named ‘iPhone.icns-3’.

While this iPhone icon is clearly different from the current iPhone (and other iPhone icons in the folder); if you look at the model revealed on iPhoneclub.nl recently, the model and the icon bear a striking resemblance. Both iPhones exhibit the rumored bezel and body changes, which make the iPhone more curved in your hand, but appear to be square. The earpiece seems to be readjusted, which is part of the rumored sensor rearrangement and addition of forward facing camera. The two iPhones are shown side by side below. You can read the orginal iPhoneclub.nl post here.

While this icon may seem promising, it could just be a remnant or reject from the original iPhone icon. Apple is rumored to introduce a new iPhone model next month at its annual WWDC (Worldwide Developers Conference); which starts on June 9th. Stick with theiLife for continuing coverage regarding the new iPhone, liveblogging from the Keynote and any other WWDC related announcements.

The closing of the Fifth Avenue Apple Store on Thursday may mark the beginning of a new advertising campaign for an as of yet unknown product. Equipment being brought into the store as well as other reports indicates that film production company Anonymous Content will be producing the advertisement.

AppleInsider reports that director David Fincher, listed as a featured director on Anonymous’s website is tied to the project. Fincher is best known as the director of Fight Club, but is also a popular producer of commercials, including the Gears of War trailer, “Mad World”, and has done work for HP and AT&T. The only other times that the Fifth Avenue Apple Store has been closed were for major product launches, and the only advertisements filmed at Apple store were filmed at this location, for, fittingly enough, the iPhone.

The majority of Apple’s marketing campaigns, including the well received Get a Mac campaign, have been produced by TBWA\Media Arts Labs. However, Apple has in the past used other firms, or allowed third parties to advertise joint product launches using their own ad firms. Anonymous Content fits the bill for this kind of campaign, having produced commercials for a wide variety of corporations, the most relevant being AT&T and Intel. It is rumored that Apple is filming a commercial for the upcoming 3G iPhone. The reasoning behind filming at the Fifth Avenue retail store is still unknown, as an Apple Store could easily be replicated in a studio. The lighting equipment outside indicates that emphasis may be on the 32 foot cube outside the store. More details to come soon!

This is the third part in a series of WWDC rumor articles, exploring the various case leaks for the new iPhone model- speculated to launch at WWDC 2008. Click here to check out the first and second articles about the rumored iPhone.

Click on the images to see a larger version.

Yesterday, the Apple rumor mill was abuzz with a story from iDealsChina Insider, an otherwise unknown website who posted leaked pictures of Griffins new case mold for the upcoming iPhone. The pictures, shown above, shows a larger opening for the supposed addition of a front facing camera, which supports the rumored claims of videoconferencing on the upcoming iPhone. The leaked photos are said to be of Griffins upcoming silicon Flex GRIP case.

Samsung has just announced their new L870 mobile handset, and several sites are reporting that it will be the first Samsung phone to include a Safari branded mobile browser. Out of left field, this information contradicts previous assumptions that mobile Safari would be an iPhone exclusive application. The L860 runs S60, a Samsung developed Symbian platform. The S60’s default browser already utilized a WebKit based browser, so it is unclear what advancements Safari will bring to the handset’s capabilities. It is worth noting that the S60 browser supports flash mobile.

Safari for Symbian will put Apple in direct competition with development teams including Microsoft’s Window’s mobile team, Nokia’s internet tablet division (which utilizes WebKit) and Opera Software’s Opera Mobile. Many mobile phone companies have utilized WebKit in their offerings due to its relative ease to implement compared with propriety rendering engines such as Microsoft’s Trident, and its easier implementation and less demanding license compared to Mozilla’s Gecko. However, Apple’s mobile Safari browser was universally lauded for its ability to render web pages accurately and quickly using limited resources and screen real-estate. So far, it remains unknown as to whether Samsung has negotiated a contract with Apple for exclusive use of the Safari trademark, or whether Safari is headed to other mobile platforms.

This is the second part in a series of WWDC rumor articles to come, exploring the possibilities of the new second generation iPhone speculated to launch at WWDC 2008. Click here to look at the first article reviewing the possibilities for the new iPhone.

The next iPhone to have GPS built in?

Over the past week, the new iPhone has seen a fair share of new rumors, findings and speculation.

Today, AppleInsider is reporting that TeliaSonera just announced a deal with Apple to sell the iPhone to Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia later this year. TeliaSonera is the dominant carrier in those regions, with over 106 million subscribers. This adds to the ongoing list of new international deals for the iPhone:

ImportGenius last week believes the 3G iPhone may be enroute to the United States, if not already here.

“Since mid-March, Apple Inc. and its logistics partners have imported 188 ocean containers of a product type never before declared on its shipping manifests.”
“On March 19 Quanta delivered 20 ocean containers of merchandise, described on the Bills of Lading as “electric computers,” to Apple, Inc. Neither Apple, Quanta, nor any other company has ever used this product description for any shipments to the U.S.”

ImportGenius noted that the declaration of “electronic computers” is in addition to the regular shipments Apple receives of desktop computers (which haven’t decreased over these past few months), which means this is not just a renaming of a current Cupertino product for customs.

The GPS has been rumored to be put into the iPhone for some time now. Recently, findings by AppleInsider might hint at the existence of GPS in the upcoming iPhone model.

The images, shown above, are of beta iPhone 2.0 firmware, build 5A292g, that was distributed to a select group of enterprise testers last week. The new shots show new preferences for location based services for the Camera and Google Maps applications, and user prompts for the permission to find their current geographical location. “”Maps” would like to use your current location” “Don’t Allow” or “Ok”.

The addition to the Camera application implies the addition of geo-tagging, which adds meta data to the photograph that includes the coordinates that the picture was taken. AppleInsider notes that the tipsters say that there seems to be no addition of geographical meta data to photos taken from the Camera application at this time.

The addition to the Maps application is even more interesting, however. In the current iPhone and iPod Touch firmware, Apple has added a “Locate Me” button which allows the user to be located by cell triangulation or through Wi-Fi hotspots. This could simply mean that Apple is re-integrating your location into the Maps application or that the addition of GPS hardware could enhance the application even more.

Finally, last Wednesday AT&T announced that it is wrapping up the deployment it’s 3G infrastructure.

“By the end of June, connecting to AT&T’s 3G mobile broadband service will be as speedy as logging onto the high speed Internet service that many consumers enjoy at home.”

By rolling out HSUPA (High Speed Uplink Packet Access) and HSDPA (High Speed Downlink Packet Access); AT&T customers will be able to achieve 1.4Mbps download speed and uploads speeds up to 800Kbps. AT&T also notes that 75 percent of the phones sold by the company are 3G compatible; with “more 3G-enabled smartphones in the summer and fall of 2008”. The cell phone carrier has spent over $20 billion in network upgrades over the past few years.

It should be noted that the iPhone 2.0 firmware is intended to be released across both the current generation iPhone and the upcoming generation iPhone. Apple revealed in March the release date of June for the firmware, which could coincide with the WWDC 2008 conference starting on June 9th. The most hotly anticipated features of the iPhone 2.0 firmware are the App Store, which will allow for 3rd party applications; and the new enterprise features such as Exchange support and VPN.

This is the first part in a series of WWDC rumor articles to come, exploring the possibilities of the new second generation iPhone speculated to launch at WWDC 2008.

A supposed spy shot of the new iPhone

For years rumors have been flying about an Apple phone. Finally, last year at Macworld 2007, Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone. Ever since the January 9th release, rumors and speculation have run wild regarding everything from rumored firmware updates to hardware revisions and even new iPhone models. Now with a little over two weeks until WWDC, the iPhone rumors have exponentially increased- and everyone seems to be unanimously shouting one thing- 3G iPhone.

The first generation iPhone is held by some as one of the best cell phone ever created. Both users and critics agree that the iPhone is close to perfection- or at least a step up for cell phones. However, some of the of the cons with the iPhone are the touch screen keyboard, slow EDGE connection (no 3G) and the lack of third party applications. With the rumored second generation iPhone, it appears that Apple is out to fix two of those three flaws for sure- 3G and third party application support with iPhone firmware 2.0 (already revealed).

Ever since the public release of the iPhone in June of 2007, the iPhone has been rumored to be getting a 3G chip in a future update. For a time, some speculated September 2007 (coinciding with iPod updates), then others thought Macworld 2008, but now it seems like an iPhone with 3G is impending for WWDC 2008. Here is some proof:

In April, AppleInsider reported that references were found in the latest iPhone 2.0 betas to the Infineon chipset, SGOLD3H. The SGOLD3H is a cellular chip that supports 3G cellular data access via HSDPA to up to 7.2 megabits/second. The chip even supports the WCDMA technology which is needed in countries such as Japan or Korea. Currently, the iPhone uses a SGOLD2 to power 2.5G (EDGE) cellular communications.

Last week, 3G settings were found in the latest betas of the iPhone 2.0 firmware.

Over the past few weeks, there have been a number of annoucments regarding the worldwide release of the new iPhone, and it appears that Apple is gearing up for a widespread International launch much larger than the one with the current iPhone. In April, Rogers announced that it was going to bring the iPhone to Canada later in the year. Last week SingTel announced it would be offering the iPhone in parts of Australia and Asia. France Télécom’s Orange announced it would be offering 3G iPhones in Austria, Belgium, the Dominican Republic, Egypt, Jordan, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Switzerland, its current African markets. America Movil announced that it would be offering the iPhone in Mexico and other parts of the region later this year. Telecom Itaila stated that it would be carrying the iPhone in Italy. Telefónica announced they were bringing the iPhone to Spain, and is rumored to launch on June 18th, with the iPhone 2. Finally, in a statement last week, Vodafone said:

“Later this year, Vodafone customers in Australia, the Czech Republic, Egypt, Greece, Italy, India, Portugal, New Zealand, South Africa and Turkey will be able to purchase the iPhone for use on the Vodafone network.”

Not only is the current iPhone nearing its first public birthday, but it is very hard to find at the moment. As reported in April with the then temporary shortage of iPhones, today the iPhone is very hard to come by. Since last week, a quick check to the Apple Online Store shows the product “Currently Unavailable”. iPhones are also in very limited quantities in both Apple Retail Stores and AT&T Retail stores. These are definitly indicators that Apple is readying an update and has sold out of the remaining inventory of iPhones.

While 3G is the likely next move for the iPhone, there is still much speculation of other changes Apple might want to make. The next few topics are debatable and the evidence is not nearly as solid as it is for 3G.

iPhone Videoconferencing developed by Ken and Greg Aspeslagh for the Iron Coder Live

Videoconferencing: There have been many rumors that the second generation iPhone will have two cameras; a camera on the back and a hidden forward facing camera to be used for video conferencing. This rumor is not supported by anything solid except that the SGOLD3H cellular chip supports live recording and videoconferencing, where as the SGOLD2 cellular chip (found in the current iPhone) does not.

Flush Headphone Jack: Another complaint about the current generation iPhone is that the recessed headphone jack makes it very hard or impossible to plug third party headphones in. It would only be logical for Apple to revise the case and mount the headphone jack flush for this next update.

GPS: Built in GPS would certainly compliment the Google Maps application. By allowing the iPhone to give a precise location fix, dynamic turn by turn directions, geotag pictures, and more.

Material Change: By switching the back case of the iPhone from anodized aluminum to plastic; the iPhone could become lighter and allow for better wireless signal reception- especially if adding GPS. One possibility is that Apple will remove the aluminum backing and use a similar material to the black plastic piece at the bottom of the current iPhone (which is there for the antennas for the cell and 802.11 wireless).

Curvier Body: The current iPhone, while rounded, seems almost square in your hand. When holding an iPhone in your palm, you generally only feel the edges of the phone. It is rumored that the back of the iPhone will be more rounded for that reason.

Verdict: We will certainly see a new iPhone launched sometime before the end of this year with 3G. Gizmodo, Tuesday morning is reporting that Apple will launch the new iPhone on June 9th, for immediate worldwide release; which is a fairly reasonable claim.

This week begins my first week of no school which means that I have lots of time to dedicate to the site. Not only does that equate to more content, and improvements to the site, but we will be able to prepare for our upcoming WWDC 2008 coverage. Regarding rumors for WWDC, I am in the process of starting a series exploring the possibilities for the WWDC 2008 Jobs keynote. The latest iPhone buzz started late Monday morning, when a new case design from manufacturer XSKN started a buzz with it’s newest iPhone case. The new case, shown below, contains a number of rumored features of the forthcoming second generation iPhone.

You can see that the new case features a curvier, rounded back; what appears to be a change in the mounting of the headphone jack and an unprotected area around the top earpiece area- presumably for a front facing camera (for video-conferencing). Note that after the release, the XSKN website has been hit hard with traffic, rendering it almost unusable.

While the iPhone will probably be the center of attention at this years World Wide Developers Convention, at this point, it isn’t unreasonable to assume that there is going to be something relating to the Mac. If you haven’t already, check out Part I.

WWDC 2008 Invitation.

WWDC is often a very difficult keynote to accurately predict. While this can basically be said about any Steve Jobs keynote or Apple event, WWDC is often more unpredictable than the others and usually centered around one thing. For example, in 2005, after presenting some sales numbers, Steve Jobs spent the entire keynote discussing the transition to Intel processors. In 2006, Jobs introduced new Intel based replacements for the Power Mac G5 (now Mac Pro) and Xserves and demoed 10 new features planned for Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard.

This year it wouldn’t be surprising to see both a software announcement accompanied by a hardware announcement. Like Macworld is primarily for the Mac, the developers would appreciate a keynote that includes something other than the iPhone. So at this point, the second generation iPhone will probably be released at a later date. However, we definitely should see information about the iPhone 2.0 software update, the App Store and, some examples of what developers have done over the months with the SDK.

As for the hardware, at this point, it looks like a laptop revision is in order for the MacBook and MacBook Pro. Coincidentally, both products are due for a redesign- both haven’t seen any hardware changes since the introduction of Intel processors. AppleInsider ran a story recently about the MacBook line redesign, how both laptops will get a style change similar to the new iMacs or MacBook Air. Apple seems to be moving away from White products- first seen last fall with the 6th Generation iPods. WWDC would be a very appropriate place to reveal new MacBook Pros.

While it is really way to early to predict what might happen at WWDC, we can tickle our imaginations for now. As it becomes closer, things will become more certain and the predictions can become more accurate. But, lets let it sink in. What do you think?

With WWDC now only two months away, its is time to start thinking about what we might see in the Stevenote.

WWDC 2008 Invitation.

This years World Wide Developers Conference is shaping out to be one of the most anticipated in the past couple years. For those who are not familiar with WWDC, it is the yearly conference held by Apple for developing for the Mac OS, and now iPhone platforms. It is a showcase for new Apple software geared towards developers- WWDC also offers a number of hands-on labs and feedback seminars. Often Steve Jobs uses it to demonstrate the latest Mac Operating System in development, and usually updates Pro hardware such as the Mac Pro or Xserve.

Typically held in June, this year is no exception. This year, however, we saw the iPhone SDK announcement on March 6th which added an entirely new platform to the Apple Development scene and demonstrated the true power behind the iPhone and OS X technologies. This year we should see, among other things, more developers attending just because of the iPhone.

The iPhone, a key product in the lineup of the Cupertino company, probably will be the central focus of Steve’s Keynote. In March, Steve Jobs announced that the iPhone 2.0 Software Update would released in June, which could mean WWDC. There has also been an enormous amount of speculation about the second generation iPhone, with 3G- which is another possibility for WWDC.

What complicates things about the second generation iPhone however, is the FCC. If Apple wants to begin to manufacture the second generation iPhone, it needs to pass through the FCC. However, the FCC would spoil a secret release, which is why Apple announced the iPhone at Macworld 2007 and waited until June to release the iPhone. Now with the phone released, it becomes more of an issue, as the transition time between the two different iPhones could mean wasted sales.

On the other hand, the introduction of the iPhone 2.0 software could be a time killer for a second generation iPhone release- along with a price cut, it could keep people buying the current iPhones, even with a new iPhone revealed. Yet another possibility to consider is the introduction of a release of a new iPhone that will remain on the same shelf as the current iPhone- to break into new price points with the iPhone, analogous to the iPod and the iPod mini in 2004.

Whatever will end up happening, these are all ideas to consider for now. Another critical focus of WWDC is the Mac, which may loose some spotlight to the iPhone, but will definitely be mentioned. More to come tomorrow. Meanwhile, what do you think?

Recently, many news sources have been reporting about the shortage of iPhones at the Apple Retail Stores, and online at the Apple Online Store. While the shortage is growing, there is no true significance to it.

The iPhone shortage has hit the United States.

Friday of last week, reports first circulated that the three flagship Apple Stores were running low on iPhones- in fact, completely selling out towards the end of the day. Some originally speculated that this is a sign of a product refresh- but the shortage isn’t because of a second generation iPhone. The main cause of the issue is most likely the cut in manufacturing initiated by Apple earlier this year. On February 1st, 2008; AppleInsider published an article based on research from Banc of America stating Apple was cutting iPhone and iPod production for the March quarter.

“[Still], we remain concerned that iPhone production and demand are lackluster,” he explained. “After several data-points in December and early January indicated large production cuts of 50%+ to iPhone production for the March quarter, our recent checks reveal that production levels are 40–55% higher for [the first calendar quarter of 2008], than the recent cuts originally suggested, although still down significantly from two months ago.”You can read the full article here.

While they speculated that the demand was shrinking, or might shrink, it appears that the demand is still strong- or strong enough to produce the current shortage we are facing. While the March quarter is traditionally one the the slowest for the iPod, it appears that Apple has underestimated the demand that still remains for the iPhone. While it is rumored that the second generation iPhone, with 3G will be making its way to our hands before years end, I think it is too early to attribute the shortage to an upcoming product release. This is why:

International stock of the iPhone is still at normal levels. Especially in Europe, where 3G has been a standard for years, you can still buy an iPhone at an Apple Store today. Europe is a prime target for a 3G iPhone- we will probably see a large boost in sales because of a 3G iPhone in the International market. If Apple is clearing out stock of iPhones in anticipation of a new model, Europe would be suffering from the same shortage. Another explanation for the iPhone shortage could be a slight strategical move on Apples part to boost iPhone numbers. While an iPhone shipped to an Apple Retail Store doesn’t count as revenue for Apple, shipping one to an AT&T Store does. Finally, while normally reserved, Apple has responded to comments about the shortage. In response to an email from Saul Hansell, after writing an article about the iPhone shortage for the New York Times, Steve Dowling says:

“We are working to replenish iPhone supplies as quickly as we can,” he said to me reading the same statement he offered to others. “Our stores continue to receive shipments almost every day.”

When Apple responds to something with that kind of detail, it usually means that they aren’t trying to hide something. Sorry guys, it looks like the second generation iPhone is still another month or two away. But, who really knows- we can only take an educated guess. If anything, the shortage demonstrates the continued demand for the Jesus Phone, even while rumors are stirring about the upcoming 3G update.